Tuesday, November 22, 2016

"Drain the swamp" chanted supporters as the election wins rolled into the Trump headquarters in New York. The Clinton grifters would not be returning to the White House.

It turns out that the election was Trump's to lose because the Democrats had promised radical change eight years ago, only to betray middle America again by bailing out Wall Street and cheating main street. In fact, the last two Democratic presidents have advanced the interests of the corporate elite more than any politicians since the Gilded Age. Hillary was on track to push for even more fracking, "free" trade deals, endless wars abroad, the destruction of public education. And she had the backing of almost all the corporate controlled media.

What Trump offered was a rollback of any advances made by immigrants, minorities, gays and women over the last several decades. A crony capitalist and racist himself, he was able to direct middle American anger towards those who are different. It is a familiar political tactic in our pluralistic society, and a very dangerous one.

It is no coincidence that societies that are thoroughly corrupted by crony capitalism end up violent and racist. The elites often prefer a type of fascism to sharing the wealth with working people. Nixon and Reagan understood this well. So, of course, did Adolph Hitler.

Our current political system is illegitimate and our media is hopelessly compromised. But we the people will bring down this hateful kleptocracy before it destroys our lives and our planet.

Native Americans are again being brutalized and violently attacked. At this very moment in Standing Rock, North Dakota they are defending their sacred lands from the Dakota Access Oil Pipeline which threatens to contaminate the water supplies of millions of people. The historical treatment of the Native Americans by the US government, the US Army, and the white settlers is one of unspeakable brutality and horror. Their lands were stolen, their cultures shattered, their way of life completely dismantled and disrupted leaving them devastated and destitute .

The Indians protecting the water are called “water protectors” and they are peacefully protecting the water for all of us. Every pipeline is dangerous - there have been hundreds of ruptures, spills, and fires - one spill was so bad that Alabama and six neighboring states declared a state of emergency.

The highly militarized police and private security forces have repeatedly attacked the water protectors with tear gas cannisters, vicious dogs, flash/bang grenades, rubber bullets, water cannons (in freezing weather), and weaponized sound devices. Peaceful protesters have been arrested, beaten, locked in dog cage enclosures, and suffered hundreds of injuries in the last few days.

The genocide and violence that occurred back in the 1800’s is history we cannot change. However, it’s repetition is something we can stop. Please visit www.sacredstonecamp.org to learn how to help. The corporate media has virtually blocked out all coverage of Standing Rock. Don’t let this brutality continue. Now is the time to speak up.

Thursday, November 3, 2016

In early October, the DavidHorowitzFreedomCenter from Sherman Oaks, California, published what it claimed was a catalog of “The Top Ten Schools Supporting Terrorists.” BrooklynCollege led the alphabetized list.

The HorowitzCenter’s credentials to make such a claim are suspect. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the HorowitzCenter has “become the premier financier of anti-Muslim voices and radical ideologies, as well as acting as an exporter of misinformation.” This list is an example of misinformation.

BrooklynCollege never has and never will support terrorism. BrooklynCollegeis one of the most richly diverse academic communities in the world, where students of many races, nationalities, and religious faiths study and learn in peace. Yarmulkes and hijabs are as common as band t-shirts and studded leather jackets. Our nearly 18,000 students come from 150 countries and speak more than 100 languages. As a result, our students learn to engage with difference and complexity, which fosters their inter-cultural competence and enriches the educational experience for all.

BrooklynCollege has more than 100 student groups. These groups are not funded by the college or tax dollars, but by student fees. They span an array of interests and include student government, cultural and identity-based clubs, sports teams, spiritual and faith-based groups, including an active Hillel club, student newspapers, political and social organizations, and community-service clubs. The college also has a chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which has engaged in demonstrations on campus to protest certain policies or actions of the State of Israel.

I have spent time with BrooklynCollege students and faculty members across the political spectrum on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and I have noted that they are often eager to befriend people with whom they disagree. A devout Muslim student, for example, told me he is deeply grateful for his Orthodox Jewish faculty mentor. An active Jewish student told me that she is friends with members of SJP. “We don’t fight about the Middle East,” she said. Jews and Muslims live with sometimes divergent and strongly held beliefs but engage one another with information, perspective, and respect. We are a racially, economically, religiously, and politically diverse community, and we aim to live in peace.

Some outsiders, however, wish to foster conflict and hate. In the early morning hours of Oct. 17, posters were hung outside the gates of BrooklynCollege. Styled as apparent recruitment posters for SJP, they asked, “Do you want to show your support for Hamas terrorists, whose stated goal is the elimination of the Jewish people?” Then “Join Us,” they implored, listing the names of SJP student leaders and a faculty supporter. The HorowitzCenter claimed responsibility for the posters.

Around the same time, Tufts, San Francisco State, Vassar, the University of Chicago, the University of Tennessee, Berkeley, UCLA, and UC Irvine all saw similar posters naming local SJP leaders deface their campuses.

In response to the posters, a recent graduate of BrooklynCollege emailed me to express his pain, arguing that SJP does not advocate terrorism and that the posters are a form of “intimidation, by smearing these students as terrorists, in order to silence their political freedom in this country.”

And although the posters were designed to intimidate the leaders of SJP, they were at times read as expressing hatred of Jews, which pained others. One Jewish student emailed me to express sadness and alarm at the hashtag “Jewhatred” on the posters.

I unequivocally condemn the hateful content of these posters. The images and words were frightening and hostile to both supporters of SJP and advocates of free speech on campus, including many Jews. In particular, they targeted individual SJP leaders with the aim of bullying them and making them vulnerable to additional harassment or worse.

Thoughtful people on all sides condemn this act. Nadya Drukker, executive director of Tanger Hillel at BrooklynCollege, for instance, emailed to emphasize, “This type of action does not represent the views of Jewish students on campus, and it does not represent Hillel’s values.”

Meanwhile, on Oct. 25, a BrooklynCollege student found four swastikas carved into a female bathroom stall on the campus. I unequivocally condemn this hateful act as well. Given the enormous tragedy that befell the Jewish people--and many others--under the sign of the swastika only 70 years ago, I must emphasize my disgust. Many in our community have relatives who suffered and died in the Holocaust. Let me underscore: Antisemitism has no place at BrooklynCollege. Islamophobia or other forms of bigotry directed against Muslims or Arabs also has no place here.

In years past, some have felt offended by SJP’s protests and have asked the BrooklynCollege administration to ban the student group. We cannot. In their “Report to Chancellor Milliken on Allegations of Anti-Semitism at CUNY,” federal judge Barbara Jones and former prosecutor Paul Shechtman found that most demonstrations on CUNY campuses are protected speech. The report explained:

Die-ins, mock checkpoints, and the SJP banner may offend some, but the First Amendment does not permit a public university to take action against them. As the Supreme Court has reminded, free speech may “best serve its high purpose when it induces a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger.” Political speech is often provocative and challenging, but that is why it is vital to university life. If college students are not exposed to views with which they may disagree, their college has short-changed them.

As a public university, BrooklynCollege is bound by the strictures of the First Amendment. We cannot suppress speech with which we disagree based on its content or viewpoint. As the Jones/Shechtman report indicates, under the Constitution, “CUNY cannot punish such speech unless it is part of a course of conduct so pervasive or severe that it denies a person’s ability to pursue an education or participate in University life.”

Moreover, as an institution of higher education, we are deeply committed to robust discourse. We cherish open dialog and engagement with ideas that test and even contradict our own. We understand that speech can harm, but we believe that the vast majority of harmful speech is best countered with more speech. We trust that reason will persuade, even with regard to the most challenging geo-political conflicts of our time.

Academic freedom not only prevents the suppression of dissident views; it also forces us to confront those whose beliefs are antithetical to our own. The opportunity to have one’s beliefs challenged, to reflect, and to consider change is the very purpose of a university. Free speech, debate, and the open exchange of ideas are the oxygen of our existence on this campus. We must engage.

I encourage every one of us to reach out beyond our comfort zone and encounter someone who is different in some way. Exchange greetings of peace and spend some time talking and trying to understand the world from their perspective. Our ability to understand perspectives different from our own is crucial to developing our analytical skills and navigating an increasingly complex and interconnected world. Let us not just reject hate; let us approach one another with openness and compassion.

In the coming months, I would like to work with a group of students, staff, and faculty to develop a series of lectures and events for next spring that elevates our discourse around these issues. If you are interested in helping shape the dialog, please reach out to me at BCPresident@brooklyn.cuny.edu. As a public institution, we are bound to uphold free speech, but we must ensure that extremists on all sides do not have the loudest voices. We must work together to elevate the debate and to enhance our historical, cultural, and political understanding of the issues.

Tuesday, November 1, 2016

This Fall, as I plant garlic in the fertile soil of Cody Creek Farm in Saugerties, I’m thinking of friends in Italy busy at the ‘raccolta’ in their olive orchards, the olive trees surrounded by ‘paracaduti’ (parachutes) to catch the hard green olives that will then be brought to the “frantoio” for pressing. I’m thinking also of families in Palestine harvesting olives with joyous shouts of “Yala! Yala!” “Let’s go! Let’s go!” and many internationals who are helping with the harvest, protecting trees and harvesters from settler violence. I’m thinking also of the recently celebrated Jewish holiday of Sukkot, dual Feast of Tabernacles and of the Ingathering, where 40 years of Jewish wandering in the desert are commemorated and “booths” are built in memory of dwellings where farmers would live during the harvest. These are just a few examples from my own experience of the Fall harvest that carry mixed feelings of joy and sadness.

I tend to see things cross-culturally and similarities and comparisons bring sorrow as well as joy. Recent violence in North Dakota towards Native Americans of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and members of 100 more tribes throughout the U.S. and Canada by Dakota Access pipeline company security guards call up to me the past years of genocide of our native peoples and continuing indifference and inaction by us, the ‘powerful elite’ -- and also, those, like myself, who comprise the 99%! The Native Americans call themselves not ‘protestors’ but water ‘protectors’ and U.S. police have deployed tear gas, mace, pepper spray, grenades, bean bag rounds at them and shot rubber bullets at their horses. I regret that I have not been there to stand with our native peoples who are trying to save the water. It happens that I was, however, a few years ago, in Bil’in, in the West Bank, walking peacefully with the Palestinian people on their land where their centuries’-old olive trees were being uprooted to fence them off from the building of settlements on their land; and tear gas, grenades, and ‘rubber’ bullets were used against these people trying to protect trees, land, and water. Devastation of the earth and people who tend the earth in both cases!

There is a film “Two Blue Lines” to be shown this Friday night at 7 at the Woodstock Town Hall, filmed over 25 years that shows conflicting views: an entitlement to land versus a spiritual commitment to freeing the oppressed and asks whether people are safer segregated or connected to each other. Being both Jewish and American, I ask myself what am I doing to free the oppressed, what am I doing to protect our ancient landscapes, our water, our trees, our spring plantings, our Fall harvests?

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